NEWPORT BEACH COSTA MESA : Education Summit Meeting Is Tonight

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District tonight will hold its first Education Summit, a community discussion featuring the district’s new superintendent and faculty, administrators and local residents who have suffered through a difficult year since former budget adviser Stephen A. Wagner was discovered to have embezzled at least $4 million from the district coffers.

About 140 have registered to participate in the Estancia High School meeting, designed to chart a new course for the district and improve its standards of education. Those who wish to participate but are unregistered can attend as observers.

This summit has been a goal of Mac Bernd, the superintendent who was hired this summer partially on his ability to repair the district’s tarnished reputation. Bernd has said repeatedly that he intends to include teachers, parents and local residents in the district decision-making.

Already, Bernd has spent time at each of the district’s 25 schools and has held a series of public speaking engagements. The culmination of that effort is tonight’s Education Summit.

Summit participants will be broken into small groups to tackle various topics, and to help select the district’s top educational priorities.

The summit will begin at 6:30 p.m. The school is at 2323 Placentia Ave. in Costa Mesa. For more information, call the superintendent’s office at (714) 760-3500.